A little late in the game, but the wording here is really interesting because the censorship of bloggers by the Chinese government includes works with imagined information. In addition, they specifically cut off the comments option. We have a direct moment here where the 2.0 and call and response of online writing is considered poisonous to government action, even if the work is a fictional piece. The most important thing to note here is that China is now requiring all microbloggers to use their real names. We talked about how useful a tracked name can be, but in this case practicality loses over privacy.
Considering how often we look at TED talks, I thought it might be worth including this fake TED talk used as a clip for the new Ridley Scott movie, Prometheus. I know this probably looks a little like getting off track, but I thought it was interesting that the author claims that humans have become gods through their acts of technological creation (in his case, "cyberkinetic individuals).
Science fiction often does a great job extrapolating certain ideas or issues, and I think in some ways we can find links to the issue and use of Wikipedia in which we can freely take place in the act of creation or manipulation of a text and even the meaning behind the entries we change. Obviously this is not necessarily created in our own image the way a cyborg would be, but it is still using McLuhan's idea of the extension of man into the cyber world. The question we're left with here though, is whether or not we deserve the moniker of "creator" if we create anonymously.
has come from ever-discreet e-book downloads, which have propelled “Fifty Shades of Grey” to No. 1 on the New York Times e-book fiction best-seller list
No. 3 position on Amazon’s best-seller list.
“We’re making a statement that this is bigger than one genre,”
“The people who are reading this are not only people who read romance. It’s gone much broader than that.”
“It’s taboo for women to admit that they watch pornography, but for some reason it’s O.K. to admit that they’re reading this book.”
habit of printing lengthy contracts and e-mail exchanges between characters in the text.
What strikes me as especially interesting about this book review is that it emphasizes and leads with the buzz surrounding its predominantly digital publication instead of the controversy about the popularity of hardcore erotic literature for women.
In the video game version, he's doing it all for love. Beatrice, a love from the real Dante's life, becomes the fictional Dante's reason for going to hell — he must rescue her from the clutches of Satan.
These plot twists are a far cry from the poem, which is woven with philosophical discussions and monologues about life and death.
Italian poet was trying to reach out to ordinary folks with his writing.
I don't have much experience with video games (I still rock out with Sonic on my Sega Genesis), but this could be a gateway game for me. I love the concept of adapting and crossing lines of genres and mediums, but it's interesting to note some of the dramatic differences and losses that must take place in translation. In this example there are some real game changers (I'm not sorry for the pun) involving plot and narrative. It's as if Dante has suddenly been inspired by Mario and must save the princess from the castle. I wonder what the equivalent of Yoshi would look like in the 7th ring of Hell...